


Lunatic Soul

by silentdescant, Sulwen



Category: Adam Lambert (Musician), Bandom, Glam Rock RPF, My Chemical Romance
Genre: AU, Crossover, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-18
Updated: 2011-11-18
Packaged: 2017-10-26 06:17:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,424
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/279668
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silentdescant/pseuds/silentdescant, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sulwen/pseuds/Sulwen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He’s been taking three pills three times a day since he was a preteen, when most kids were still on a twice a day routine. His condition has always been harder to control -- that’s what the doctors tell him, anyway. Maybe he does need to up the dosage again. Maybe another pill wouldn’t hurt.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lunatic Soul

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the [sick Frank challenge](http://yobrothatssick.livejournal.com/) on LJ. See end notes for our full prompt!

The day starts with the loud ring of Frank’s alarm clock. Every morning, he reaches over and clicks it off, then sits up in bed as his hands find the glass of water he sets out each night, the pristine white bottle of pills. He shakes three out into his palm and stares down at them. His mouth is dry and tacky, and the pills smell like chalk and dust. The day spreads out before him like a well-tread rug, the same path he walks every day, footsteps on footprints, and there’s a strange sensation somewhere in his chest, a heaviness that makes even just getting out of bed seem impossible. He grits his teeth, uneasy. The pills will fix it--they always do--but the thought of putting them in his mouth almost makes him gag.

_Sick again._

Frank forces himself to raise his hand to his mouth and toss the pills back. He closes his eyes and drains the cup of water, and he takes a deep breath, and by the time he opens his eyes again, he feels normal. Clean. Ready.

He takes a quick shower and dresses for work, in the same white dress shirt and black slacks that everyone in his building wears, and he stops for breakfast in the lobby of his office building before heading up to his cubicle on the eighth floor. He nods hello to the people in the cubicles around him as they finish their coffee and then settles into his work, the white noise of steady, fast typing filling the air around him.

Lunch is delivered to his desk, a bland grey substance that Frank hardly looks at or tastes while he listens to voice messages. Halfway through, he drops his fork and smears sauce in an oily smudge on his collar, and instantly he feels sick again, over-warm and on edge, heart pounding hard, like he wants to do something. He goes to the bathroom and watches himself in the mirror while he washes down three more pills. He can almost see the flush fade from his face as the drugs take effect, and by the time he’s back at his desk he’s breathing easy again. Gerard is waiting for him when he gets back, like always, dropping off the morning’s expense reports for processing. They exchange nods, and Frank takes the stack of papers and sits down again. He glances over his shoulder, watching as Gerard disappears down the row of cubicles. He doesn’t know why he’s looking, though there must be a reason. There _must._

He focuses his eyes back on his work.

At the end of the day, when the clock clicks over to read 6:30 in bright red numbers, everyone logs out of their computers and says goodbye to their colleagues and heads back to their identical numbered units. Frank makes himself dinner in his microwave at home, and he eats it quickly while watching the nightly broadcast of the city news. He never pays much attention to the events mentioned; there are stories of a riot in a neighboring city, a dead body found in a ditch, a fertilization center shut down for maintenance. They all slide right past him. He listens for any planned traffic changes, or city-wide alarm system tests, and then he turns off his television and gets into bed.

Before turning out his lamp, Frank shakes another three pills into his hand and tosses them back with a sip of water. He leaves the glass, still mostly full, beside the pill bottle for morning. As he pulls the blankets up to his chin, he thinks idly about talking to his doctor about the sickness he’s been having. It seems to be worst in the mornings. If the pills aren’t lasting through the night, perhaps he could take a higher dose. Just at night. Just to get him through.

The next morning, Frank hovers for a long moment in the ephemeral space between asleep and awake, clinging to something he can’t quite see, can’t quite remember. He feels light, _bright_ , like he might float right off the bed if he doesn’t hang on to the covers. When he comes awake fully, he realizes his cheeks hurt, and he reaches up to find his lips drawn tight and his teeth exposed, like a smile, but...bigger. He forces his mouth back to where it belongs. Eventually. It’s harder than it should be. Much harder. He rubs his forehead, takes his pills, and waits for it to ease before getting out of bed. At lunch, he turns to the woman in the cubicle beside his and asks if her pills ever wear off before they should. She shakes her head and turns back to her reports.

Frank’s tempted to take an extra pill before bed that night, but he’s already at the maximum dose. He’s been taking three pills three times a day since he was a preteen, when most kids were still on a twice a day routine. His condition has always been harder to control -- that’s what the doctors tell him, anyway. Maybe he does need to up the dosage again. Maybe another pill wouldn’t hurt. He takes four, quickly, and in the morning, he wakes up with his stomach rolling but no other strange sensations, nothing like the past few days. He sighs, mind put at ease, and goes about his routine. Then he looks at his reflection in the bathroom mirror and sees how incredibly pale he looks, like all the blood has drained out of his body, leaving him cold and slow and looking half-dead. He makes up his mind then to not experiment with his dosage again.

Frank’s entire day is just a little bit... _off_. When he walks down the hall to his cubicle, the sparkle of sunlight on the building next door catches his eye and he finds himself stopped in front of the window, staring out at the light. It’s nothing special, just light on glass, but for some reason, he can’t look away. He’s jolted out of his daze when someone runs into him and sends him stumbling into the wall. He’s somehow... disappointed to leave the window. From his cubicle, the only light he can see comes from the harsh artificial overheads and the glowing screen of his computer. It’s not the same. He can’t explain why...but he knows it’s not.

At lunch time, Frank stares down at his meal, his fork held frozen in one hand. He’s supposed to eat. That’s what happens at this time of day. He’s never not eaten it. But the thought of digging his fork into the grey, congealed mess makes his stomach twist and rebel. Frank doesn’t even want to imagine putting it into his mouth. He spends half the lunch period staring down at the food, trying to convince himself that he needs to eat it, but it’s useless. He carries his plastic bowl into the bathroom and tosses it into the trash can before reaching for his pill bottle and taking his midday dose. It takes effort to swallow the pills, and they feel strange in his stomach without the weight of his food to go with them. Maybe without the food, they’ll have a stronger effect.

He goes back to his desk just in time for Gerard’s daily visit, and Gerard nods to him, just like always, and holds out the small stack of papers. Frank takes them without thinking, and his fingers brush the back of Gerard’s hand, a barely-there moment of contact that’s over just as soon as it’s begun. An unfamiliar shiver races through Frank’s body, all the way up and down his spine. He stares up at Gerard’s face, wondering if maybe Gerard felt it too, but Gerard is as blank-faced as ever, betraying nothing. Frank’s cheeks start to feel warm, and the sensation grows until it takes over his whole face, starts crawling down his chest. The heat coils in the pit of his stomach and Gerard is raising his eyebrow now, and Frank realizes he’s staring. He turns his head quickly and, thankfully, Gerard takes that as his cue to leave. Frank looks down at himself. His hands are shaking. His penis feels hot and thick in his pants, and when he lays his hand over it, he feels something so intensely different than pain, he can’t even describe it. He gasps at the utter foreignness of the sensation and takes his hand away. It’s too strange. Too different. He doesn’t know what it means, but one thing is clear. This sickness isn’t going away. He’s getting worse.

Frank takes a deep breath and stares straight ahead at his computer screen, willing the uncomfortable heat to disappear. It lessens, after a while, but even when Frank gets home at the end of the day, echos of the intense, unbearable heat and tension remain. Frank forces down a meal and reaches for his bottle of pills. He needs to get rid of these symptoms. He needs to get _better_. He shakes five pills out of the bottle and stares at them. He has a scheduled appointment with the doctors next week. Until then, he needs to control himself. He swallows all five pills and drinks an entire glass of water to ease the chalky dryness, and when he settles into bed, he’s finally feeling normal again.

He wakes up shivering and soaked with sweat. It’s still dark out. He blinks a few times but can’t focus on the red numbers on his clock -- it’s like trying to read a different language. It makes no sense to him. He rolls out of bed and lands on his knees, and it’s _freezing_ , and his muscles feel tight and sore. His stomach twists painfully and he doubles over, resting his forehead on the floor and wrapping an arm around his middle. He’s never felt anything this painful in his life, and it brings tears to his eyes.

“Why...I don’t... _why_?” he asks through chattering teeth. “What’s wrong with me?”

Frank sits on the floor for a long while, taking slow, deep breaths and blinking quickly through watering eyes, but the fluttering tightness in his stomach doesn’t ease. He tries not to move. His alarm goes off, and he can’t reach it to turn it off, so it keeps beeping, ringing loud and obnoxious in his ears. His head starts to pound, and all of a sudden, his stomach twists and last night’s meal comes up feeling like fire in his esophagus, his whole body wrenching with the spasms. When it’s finally over, nothing left inside him to purge, he collapses on his side, face pressed against the rough carpet, and _cries_.

It’s the worst thing yet. Babies cry. Sick people, _insane_ people cry. Frank _can’t_ be crying.

He looks up toward the pill bottle on his nightstand, reaches out...but then his stomach convulses again, painful and sudden, and he tastes sour bile on his tongue. There’s no way he’s going to be able to keep anything down. Not even one little pill.

He forces himself into the shower and scrubs hard at his face. He wasn’t crying. No one will ever know about it, so it didn’t happen. He can make it through one day without the pills, he’s sure. Almost sure. He won’t tell anyone. He’ll just sit at his desk and do his work and not talk to anyone at all. It’ll be easy. Like any other day.

Frank makes it to his desk and focuses on keeping his breathing steady as everyone says hello and settles into their work. It’s easy, then, to lose himself in the repetitive motions of reading reports and inputting data. The numbers on the screen are clear and unchanging, and today, Frank welcomes that. It’s concrete and normal and everything his life hasn’t been lately, and he works quickly, almost done with the task by lunchtime.

Lunch comes. Frank wants to tell the girl who delivers it to just keep his portion, give it to someone else or throw it away, _anything_ but put it on his desk to torment his stomach. Instead, he watches her set it down and walk away down the row of cubicles, leaving one square plastic dish in each. He’s about to grab it and walk to the bathroom to throw it away, wondering if he can make it without retching, when a man dressed all in black appears in his door.

Mr. Lyon only rarely visits Frank and his coworkers in their cubicles. He tells Frank about an error in the network, explaining that the data Frank entered this morning hadn’t been transferred to the company’s servers, and he will have to redo the day’s work. Frank nods his head, even as his chest burns with something strong and overwhelming, something _red_. He feels his hands clench into fists and hides them beneath his desk.

He hangs on until Mr. Lyon disappears again, biting down hard into the insides of his cheeks and focusing on the pain. As soon as he can, he shoves his chair back and walks as fast as he can to the bathroom. He realizes halfway there that his lunch is still on his desk, untouched and congealing, but he can’t go back now. Something inside him is clamouring to get out, banging on the walls of his brain, and he’s not going to be able to hold it back very much longer. The bathroom will be safe, empty and quiet and safe.

The door crashes against the wall when he pushes his way in and the noise startles him, but he doesn’t calm down after. He liked the noise. He liked the slam. He waits until the door closes again before whirling around the bathroom and letting loose a ragged, wordless shout. Even that doesn’t seem like enough. Whatever it is that’s building up inside him hasn’t been set free yet. Frank raises his fist and puts all his weight behind it as he hurls it into the tiled metal door of a bathroom stall. The pain is immediate, and it actually helps distract Frank from the seething mess inside him. He cradles his hand to his chest and carefully pokes the raw, torn skin on his knuckles where blood is starting to drip.

Suddenly, the other stall opens and a man steps out. “Hey,” he says. “Are you okay?”

“What--What are you doing here?” Frank asks. The thought that someone might have witnessed his lapse in sanity sticks in his mind and he can’t shake it. “I’m not feeling well.”

“Apparently.”

“Please don’t...you aren’t going to tell anyone, are you?”

The man comes forward and takes Frank’s hand. Frank resists, but the man pulls him toward the sink. “You’re bleeding,” he says. “Just let me clean this up.”

“Who are you?” Frank recognizes his face, the sharp features and blond hair, but he doesn’t know many people in the office. Only the ones that he sees every day, like Gerard.

“Tommy,” the man replies. “I deliver the mail? You’re Frank, right? Frank Iero in cube sixteen?”

“Yeah...I never knew your name,” Frank tells him.

“That’s okay. I only know yours ‘cause of your mail.” Tommy turns the tap and holds Frank’s bloody knuckles under shockingly cold water. “How long have you been...sick?”

“It’s just...it’s nothing. I’m not even sick. I’m fine,” Frank says. He feels like he might puke again. “I’ve just been having problems with my dosage. But I’m fine.”

“Ah,” Tommy says, and he smiles. Frank doesn’t understand why. “The pills. That makes sense.”

Frank leans closer and lowers his voice, even though the bathroom is empty. “Does it? Did you have problems with it? Did you get sick?”

“Sure, yeah. I got sick. Then I got better.”

“Did it just... stop?”

Tommy moves his head in a way that isn’t quite a nod and isn’t a shake either, and he lifts his shoulders. “In a way.”

Frank lifts his chin and stares Tommy right in the face, eyes wide. He’s heard of this, the underground pharma market. It’s illegal. It’s disappearing into one of the big white buildings in the middle of the city and never coming out illegal. But... “What was it? Is it new drugs, stronger ones? I have money, I’ll pay you whatever you want, just...I need them. Now. I need this to stop.”

“It’s not new drugs,” Tommy says. He sighs and spends a long time looking at Frank.

“Then how did you get better? You don’t seem sick...” He’s seen Tommy around the office, and Tommy never looks flushed, or shaking, or like he’s been crying. Even now, now that he’s not smiling, Tommy is as blank as a stone, exactly like everyone else. It’s hard to believe him.

“I was like you, Frank. It got weird. Little things, at first, and then big ones. Right?” Tommy cocks his head and Frank feels himself nodding reluctantly in reply. “And then one day, I found other people like me, and they helped me.”

“There’s more people like this?” Frank asks in a hushed voice.

“There’s a lot more. And with them, I got better.”

“But _how_?”

“Come with me tonight, Frankie. I’ll bring you to them, and they can help you too.”

Frank’s chest feels tight, and his head is spinning, like he can’t get enough air. “How do I know I can trust you?” he grates out, not meeting Tommy’s eyes.

There’s a long pause, and for a second Frank thinks he’s blown it, his one chance to fix this whole awful situation. Then, slowly, so slowly, Tommy steps closer and wraps his arms around Frank’s body, pulling him close enough that he can feel Tommy’s face and chest and knees against his own. Frank’s breath catches in his throat, and his eyes fly open in shock, staring at the bleached-clean whiteness of the bathroom over Tommy’s shoulder. It’s the most any other person has ever touched him, and it’s _strange_ , something private and forbidden and...something _else_ , something Frank doesn’t have words for.

Tommy turns his face toward Frank’s, and they’re cheek-to-cheek and Frank can feel Tommy’s breath gusting across his ear. Tommy whispers, “Tell me you feel how I feel right now, Frankie. Please tell me you feel something.”

“I... I feel...” Frank doesn’t know how to describe the warmth spreading throughout his entire body, so he just nods and hopes that’s enough. He knows now that Tommy is like him, in any case. No normal person would... _could_...well. He knows he’s not alone anymore.

Tommy pulls away and holds Frank at arm’s length. “Meet me after work, in the lobby.”

Frank looks into Tommy’s wide, earnest eyes, and bites his lip. “I...I don’t know if I can.”

“I do.” Tommy smiles at him again, a small, secret expression that makes Frank want to smile back. “I’ll see you there? Frank?”

Frank takes a deep breath. “Yeah. Okay. Lobby.”

Meeting Tommy weighs on Frank’s mind throughout the rest of the day. He can’t concentrate on his work, especially since he’s already done it once this morning, and he keeps glancing up at the big clock on the wall, urging it to move faster. When the work day ends, Frank is the first person out of his chair and waiting at the elevator.

Down in the lobby, Frank waits by the door, scanning the crowd of people for Tommy’s bright blond hair. When Tommy finally appears, their eyes meet and Tommy wordlessly comes over to Frank and leads him out of the building. They don’t head towards the parking lot or even the bus stop. Tommy takes him a few blocks away to a building that looks abandoned.

“Here? Really?” Frank asks.

“Trust me.”

Tommy grabs Frank’s arm and pushes him into a large elevator. Frank watches him work the rusted controls with practiced ease. The elevator starts moving down, and Frank’s heart leaps into his throat.

“Is this--”

Suddenly, a loud blast of noise interrupts him. The elevator sinks into place and opens up to a dark corridor with a single, flickering light at the end. Tommy steps out of the elevator and reaches back to take Frank’s hand.

“It’s okay,” he says, and Frank believes him.

The noise gets louder as they move down the hallway, and at first Frank thought it was an alarm, but now he realizes it’s something more constant, more focused. It’s _interesting_. Intriguing. Frank concentrates on it, trying to pick it apart in his mind.

Finally, they round the corner and Frank is greeted by sights and sounds and _smells_ he’s never experienced before in his life, could never even have dreamed. He can’t do anything but stop and _stare_.

The first thing that hits him is the color -- color everywhere, colors he doesn’t have names for, that he didn’t even know existed this morning. The world he knows is made up of grey and black and white, the flat blueness of the sky. Here, even the light is colored, the bulbs shining through paper covers of red and purple and green, making everything their light touches look exotic and strange. There are soft-looking folds of bright fabric draped from the ceiling and pictures on the walls, asymmetrical shapes that don’t look like anything on Frank’s computer screen, and some that don’t look like anything at all. A rogue thought goes through his head before he can stop it, something about how the scribble of red and black to his left reminds him of being sick this morning at work, the hot feeling inside his chest after Mr. Lyon has told him his work would have to be redone. But it’s a ridiculous thought, and he shuts it away quickly, looking away from the pictures and focusing instead on the people filling the room.

There are people _everywhere_. It’s even more crowded in this underground room than it was in the lobby at work only a few minutes ago. They’re all moving and talking over each other and Frank doesn’t even know where to look first. None of them are wearing clothes anything like his button-up shirt and plain black pants. In fact, their clothes don’t look regulation at all, like maybe they weren’t even made on a machine. They’re colorful, like everything here seems to be, and some of them have little bits of glass on them, catching the light like water catches the sun. They seem to be moving in time with the sound that fills the room, and Frank squeezes his eyes shut tight, wondering what the sound is, what is it about it that’s making them move like that.

It sounds like...Frank doesn’t even _know_ , and he hardly dares to breathe, he’s listening so hard. It’s like footsteps on the pavement and the chimes of the city clock and the rise and fall of a thousand voices, like that, if they were all _connected_ somehow, like if someone could take all those elements and put them together so that they worked like the gears of a machine. But there’s something else to it, too, something beneath that mechanical precision, and it’s that intangible _something_ that makes Frank’s heart beat faster and his skin tingle. All the things that have been happening to him lately, all the things he doesn’t have words for...he thinks maybe they’re what this sound means. And he thinks he could maybe stand here listening forever.

Instead, Tommy tugs him forward and leads him straight through the throng of people to the other side of the room. There’s a long, raised table there, covered with condensation rings, and behind it on shelves are a hundred different glass bottles in all shapes and sizes. Tommy says something that Frank can’t hear over the noise, and the man behind the counter hands over a glass filled with amber liquid. Tommy drains half of it in one sip.

Frank leans close to shout in Tommy’s ear. “Is that the cure?”

“No!” Tommy laughs. “It helps, though. You want one?”

“What is it?”

“It’s just a drink,” Tommy tells him. “It’ll make you think less.”

Frank shakes his head. “Not if it won’t help me.” His stomach still doesn’t feel quite right, anyway.

Tommy grabs Frank’s shoulder and squeezes hard. “Relax, Frankie. We’re all the same here. And all different too.”

Frank isn’t sure what that means. He follows Tommy back through the crowd to a quieter area, where there’s actually room to breathe. There are a few people sitting in chairs and...writing on each other with pens?

“This is where I work,” Tommy explains.

“I thought you worked in the mail room.”

Tommy laughs again and swallows down the rest of his drink. “This is where I work for fun.” He sets his empty glass down and rolls up the sleeves of his shirt, revealing colorful drawings all over his arms. Frank reaches out to touch before he can stop himself, but Tommy doesn’t seem to mind. When Frank rubs his finger over the drawings, the ink doesn’t transfer or smear at all.

“It’s permanent,” Tommy says.

“Why did you draw on yourself?” Frank asks. “What if someone sees?”

“No one ever looks. You want one?”

“One what?”

“A tattoo. A _drawing_.”

Frank looks at the drawings on Tommy’s arms and thinks about the pictures on the walls, and wonders what his skin would look like if it was another color, a not-skin color, purple or green or blue. Then he thinks about work tomorrow, and the bright overhead lights, and shakes his head slowly.

Tommy shrugs. “Let me know if you change your mind. It hurts, but it’s kind of a good hurt, you know?”

Frank doesn’t know.

Tommy watches him for a moment, waiting for a response that Frank can’t give, but then, suddenly, it doesn’t seem to matter anymore. Tommy’s face brightens, like he’s remembering, and he says, “Oh! You have to meet Adam!”

Frank asks who Adam is, but Tommy’s already pulling him back into the crowd. People press in tight around them, all moving and writhing and shaking their heads and holding their hands high in the air. It’s hard to keep track of Tommy in front of him. It’s hard to stay close with so many people trying to pull them apart.

They finally break through on the other side of the crowd and Frank sees a raised platform, a man sitting on an ornate chair like some sort of king out of the history books. Even sitting, Frank can tell he’s tall. He has the blackest hair Frank’s ever seen, and his eyes and cheeks and lips are painted with colors. Frank wonders if the colors come off, or if they’re like the drawings -- _tattoos_. Permanent.

“Who is that?” he asks. He’s having trouble looking away; the man draws Frank’s attention like no other person in the room.

“That’s Adam. He’s the one that started this club. You should talk to him.”

“No, I--I don’t know what to say,” Frank stammers.

“Tell him about your experiences. Tell him how you felt sick. He likes hearing people’s stories.”

“Will he fix me?”

Tommy hesitates. “Yeah. He can fix you.”

“What is he going to do? I need something. I need a new drug.”

“You just have to talk to him. Then he’ll know what you need. Trust me, Frankie. He’s good at helping people. He helped everyone here. He helped me.”

Frank glances around the room. These people don’t look fixed. They look...whatever the opposite of fixed is. They look worse than Frank, but somehow, they don’t look _sick_. He looks back at the man in the chair and gasps when he finds laser-sharp blue eyes staring right at him. He turns away, back to Tommy, and stutters, “No, no, I...not right now. I can’t.”

“I really think you should,” Tommy says slowly. “He can help. He can explain all these things you’re feeling. You should talk to him.”

“No. No. I can’t.” It’s hard for Frank to draw in a full breath now. He feels pressed in, squeezed from all sides, even though nobody’s touching him. He glances around quickly, looking everywhere but at Adam and that piercing gaze, and Tommy reaches up and takes hold of his shoulder again. His grip is firm and it helps Frank focus, stops his mind from whirling into too many directions.

“Okay,” Tommy says. “Okay. Some other time. Come on, this way.”

Tommy leads Frank deeper into the huge room, into an area that’s a little more secluded and a little darker, curtains hanging down low from the ceiling and the floor covered in pillows. Frank stares with wide eyes at the people behind those curtains, people that are entwined together on the floor, laid out almost like they’re sleeping...people that are wearing _nothing at all_.

Frank claps a hand to his mouth and turns away, staring at Tommy with wide eyes. “Are they...” he whispers, not wanting to attract attention. Tommy smirks and nods. “But... _why_?”

“It’s not just about _fertilization,_ Frank. It doesn’t have to be.”

“Then _what_? What is it about?” Frank can feel his voice scraping his throat raw, it’s so shrill and strange. He can still see movement out of the corner of his eye, and blood rushes to his face and then crawls down his chest, exactly the same way it happened yesterday. His hand drifts to his crotch, just to feel, and yes, it’s _exactly_ the same. Frank quickly stuffs his hands into his pockets.

“Pleasure. Or even pain, sometimes. _Feeling_.”

“What?”

Tommy’s eyes go soft, and he gives Frank a sympathetic look. “You really should be talking to Adam about this, he explains it so much better than me, but...those times when things get weird, you know, in here?” Tommy puts a hand on his own chest, and Frank nods. “Maybe you shouldn’t be trying to get rid of them. Just...think about it, okay? Think about why you want them to go away.”

Frank nods even as he says, “I can’t be here. I’m not like this.”

“Okay,” Tommy replies quietly. Frank has to strain to hear him, and Tommy’s avoiding Frank’s eyes now. He bites his lip and then continues. “We’re here every night, Frank. You know where to find us. If you want to come back, I mean.”

“If I want to...”

“I hope you do.”

Tommy escorts him back to the elevator, riding it up with him to the street. Outside, the evening sun is still shining, and everything looks the same as it did before Frank went below. He steps out of the elevator and turns back to glance at Tommy over his shoulder, and Tommy gives him a single nod before disappearing down again.

Frank can’t get the experience out of his mind. He thinks about it constantly during his entire trip home, and he only makes himself dinner by force of habit. He thinks about how Tommy changed from the normal man at the office to this strange person with ink on his arms, someone who’s comfortable surrounded by loud music and crowds of people moving against each other.

When he gets into bed and closes his eyes, he sees a remembered image of Adam, the intensity of the man’s bright gaze and the way he seemed separate from everyone. Frank’s never encountered a person quite like Adam. He’s never seen someone that can command a room without saying a word, someone who draws attention instead of trying to blend in. That’s not the way the world works. Then again...nothing in that room had seemed like part of Frank’s world. He could almost believe none of it was real at all, just another side effect of the sickness, making him see things that weren’t there -- but the images are too strong, sense-memories of pounding rhythms and sharp-smelling amber liquids and the long, gleaming lines of bare bodies wrapped up in each other.

He begins feeling flushed again, all over his body, almost like the blankets covering him are heated and everywhere they touch his skin starts to burn. He shifts restlessly, first turning onto his side and then all the way over onto his stomach, with his hands shoved under his pillow. The pillow is cool against his cheek, but everywhere else is still hot. Frank finds himself panting, and the pillow starts feeling damp under him. He finally shoves everything off his body, kicks the sheets and the comforter down to the end of the bed in a tangled lump. The sudden rush of fresh air against his skin is welcome at first, but then tiny, quick shivers race up and down Frank’s arms and legs, even though he isn’t actually cold.

Part of him wants to pull off his sleep-clothes, too. They feel restrictive in a way they never have before, too tight around his neck and twisted around his legs. He tightens his fingers into fists instead, resisting the urge. It’s too close to where he’s been tonight, like admitting it, like a confession written in bare skin and hot blood. But the images still come, tumbling one over another in an inexorable tide. Tommy does that. Tommy, the quiet, stone-faced man who delivers his mail. He leaves the office every night and goes to that place and does...those things. Frank digs his fingers hard into his eyes, hard enough to hurt, but it doesn’t stop him thinking about it, what Tommy looks like with his buttons all undone and his hair messy from the grasping of hands. Adam has to do it too, doesn’t he, Frank thinks with a start. He remembers the color on Adam’s lips, that unnatural bright red, thinks about what that red would look like pressed against pale skin, if it would leave a tell-tale trace of color behind. And, suddenly, Frank realizes that he’s imagining those lips pressed against his _own_ skin. He can feel them, then, like a phantom touch on his collarbones, dragging down his chest. He lifts his hand and touches chest with just two fingertips, a placeholder for what those lips might feel like, and he takes them all the way down his chest, feeling the tense fluttering of the muscles in his stomach.

His body is flaring up under him again, like there’s something wild inside him trying to get out, in his breath and blood and lower, and he presses a hand hard to his penis, like he can force the reaction to go away, to stop tormenting him. But it only seems to make things worse, and he can’t, he doesn’t want to _stop_ touching, hips twitching up to meet his palm. The normally soft cotton of his pants feels unbearably rough against his skin now, and he wants...he winces and presses his head back harder into the pillow and tries not to think about the very _wrong_ things he wants.

His hand is moving again before he realizes it, fingertips sliding hesitantly under the waistband of his pants, and his eyes fly open, staring down the line of his body at the door like he’s afraid someone will walk in at any moment, catch him out and tell everyone he knows about what he’s doing right now. The shock of anxious fear spikes through his veins, meeting the building heat inside him and spurring it on somehow, pushing him toward an unknown conclusion, something new and terrifying, like the sudden starkness of a cliff-face.

His body zings with sparks that feel like electricity, little static shocks that are not quite enough to hurt. He pushes down on his penis and everything intensifies, and even though it’s close to the point of pain, it’s decidedly _not_ pain. It’s something entirely new. His hand clenches, his fingers curling so that they cup him and hold him firmly. He squeezes once, experimentally, and the muscles in his thighs pull tight and his legs stretch open, giving Frank more room for his hand.

He blinks up at the ceiling and sees Gerard’s face, and he suddenly remembers the spark that passed between them, through them, when Frank accidentally touched Gerard’s hand. It seems impossible that the same touch could be so different for each of them -- Gerard hadn’t reacted a bit, not the slightest breath or twitch of a muscle. But Frank can almost still feel the heat of Gerard’s hand under his fingertips, the softness of his skin, the heartbeat somewhere underneath. He can’t get it out of his head, no matter how many other things he touches. It’s still there.

Frank tries to combine the memory of the club, the flashing lights and the naked bodies, and the image of Gerard in his mind. It’s hard to mix them--Gerard just seems so normal--but then again, so did Tommy. He pictures ink curling up and down Gerard’s arms, hidden beneath his shirts. He pictures Gerard’s lips colored and full and wet, like Adam’s, and his eyes rimmed in black like Adam’s. He pictures Gerard’s dark hair and pale skin, and then he pictures Gerard’s penis, hard like Frank’s is now, and Frank has to swallow down a moan. He’s not sure how it happened, or how he got to this point, but his body feels like it’s on the cusp of exploding, like he’s too big for his skin. He’s grabbing at himself now; he can’t help it. He squeezes too tight, and it _does_ hurt, but not enough to stop.

It’s too much, it’s all too much, and he’s _dying_ but he doesn’t care, this is worth it, this _feeling_. His whole body’s moving furiously, hands and hips and his mouth stretched painfully open, gasping. He’s reaching for something, something that’s coming closer with every second, and if he could just...if he can...just a little faster, harder, _more_...

The end, when it comes, is almost...no, definitely. _Definitely_ more than Frank can handle. He thinks he might be screaming, might be working his throat raw with it, but it’s hard to tell, hard to think about _anything_ right now except the hot rush of pleasure punching out of him in rhythmic pulses, spilling wet and messy over his fingers and soaking into his pants. The sharp scent of it cuts through the haze in Frank’s brain and pulls him back to awareness too quickly, leaving him dizzy with the aftershocks and the intensity of it all and the sudden, sickening rush of _shame_.

He looks at the door, and then at the window, and of course there isn’t anyone there, but against all logical reason, he thinks someone might _know_ , might figure out what he did. It’s against nature, spending his seed like this for no purpose. He may have even broken a law; he doesn’t know. He stares down at the wet mess coating his hand, sees further evidence of his guilt seeping through his pants. It feels like a stain, more permanent than anything Tommy has drawn on his arms. He wants it off, wants to clean himself, but he doesn’t know what to do. He can’t wipe his hands on his clothes, or on the sheets. He can’t let it dry on him, can’t stand to feel the heat dissipate and turn cold and clammy. He finally rolls out of bed and shuffles into the bathroom. He turns the shower on as hot as it will go and steps under the spray still dressed, hoping the water will wash away the seed still clinging to his clothes, and when he slinks back into bed, dry and warm and in a fresh set of sleepwear, things should be normal again.

Except they’re not. Everything is in place in the room, just as it should be, and even his body seems to be quiet and uncomplaining for once. The mess is inside his head, all the neat, orderly thoughts there toppled over and broken open, and he doesn’t know how to put them back together again. If he even can.

Frank doesn’t realize he’s forgotten to take his pills until he wakes up in the morning, sunlight streaming in through the window and work facing him. It’s the first time since he can remember that he’s gone a whole day without a pill, and his stomach feels better than it has in a long time. His mind is racing, and he’s still tired, like his brain didn’t shut off when he went to sleep. There are too many thoughts whirling around in his head for Frank to even focus on one. He wants to see Tommy again, to reassure himself that last night was even real, and he wants to see Gerard, even though his stomach twists uncomfortably at that idea. He’s already wishing lunch could be something different today, and the end of the day can’t come soon enough and it hasn’t even started yet. It’s strange, so many warring thoughts trying to share space in his head, but...not strange in a bad way. Not really.

Frank looks over at the pill bottle. There’s no glass of water beside it this morning, and the thought of forcing those pills down his throat makes him want to vomit. Even after the confusing discomfort of his body’s reaction to that club, Frank can’t bring himself to take the pills and quiet all the feelings. He can control himself better today, he’s sure. And it’s not like...he swallows and finally admits to himself something he’s known inside for a while now. It’s not like the pills are working anyway. Maybe if he could take more of them they might still do something, but his body can’t handle that many, and it seems pointless to make himself sick over such a small chance. Tommy fakes it every day. He can, too. He _knows_ he can.

Office. Work. Lunch. It’s easier than he thought it would be. He’s been practicing for this his entire life. He knows his routine. He knows what to do.

And then he sees Gerard coming down the row of cubicles toward him, paperwork in hand, his hair falling just barely into his eyes, and he’s not sure he can do this after all. He swallows hard and turns back to his computer, even as his entire body seems to call to Gerard. He fights so hard to remain still, stare at his screen and pretend to be busy as Gerard hands him the reports. He’s careful to keep their hands from touching, this time, and he doesn’t meet Gerard’s eyes as he nods his thanks. Then Gerard walks away and Frank can breathe again. He leans back in his chair, peeking around the corner of his cubicle to watch Gerard continue on his rounds, and that’s when he sees Tommy wheeling the mail cart down the aisle.

Frank sits up abruptly and stares at his screen again. He types a few lines into his spreadsheet, but his mind isn’t on the work. He could be typing a string of zeros for all he knows. Tommy steps into his cubicle and, as with Gerard, Frank fights not to turn around.

“I’ve got a couple things for you,” Tommy says. “Looks like your check and a memo, and, oh, take a look at the one on top.”

Tommy leaves without trying to engage Frank in conversation, and Frank is exceedingly grateful. When he’s sure he won’t be interrupted again, he reaches for the small stack of mail. The piece Tommy mentioned is nothing more than a folded piece of blank paper. Frank unfolds it carefully, with an unshakable sense that it might bite him or something, but all it is is a scrawled note that reads: _Are you coming back?_

Frank shakes his head automatically, even though Tommy can’t see him. Even though he’s craving the noise of the club. Even though he wants to see more, explore this secret world that Tommy seems to know intimately. Frank keeps shaking his head until it becomes obvious to him that he won’t be able to stay away.

It’s Adam’s fault, really. It has to be. He’s the leader. He’s where these ideas are coming from. Frank’s heard rumors now and then, stories from other cities about people breaking regulation, embracing the sickness and even turning on the governors. He’s never thought they might be true, might be something that could happen in his own city, his own life. Who knows? Maybe Tommy’s even been dosing him, slipping him something in his lunch to counteract the pills. Maybe they’re working on everyone here, one at a time, trying to convert them. It’s not Frank’s fault at all. It can’t be.

That’s what he’ll do--he’ll go back to Adam’s underground den tonight, and he’ll confront him. _Force_ him to admit what he’s been doing to Frank, and find out how to make it right again. And if he happens to hear some more of those rhythmic, pounding sounds while he’s there, the ones that seemed to crawl inside his chest and stay there, giving voice to everything in the world he can’t define...well, that’s just coincidence. Nothing he can do about that.

When the work day ends, Tommy’s waiting for him in the lobby. They walk together, in silence, to the abandoned building and into the rickety elevator. Frank’s ready for the blast of noise this time. He’s ready for the flashing lights and the colors. He leaves Tommy at the door and pushes his way through the crowd on his own, heading for Adam’s raised chair. He finally breaks through the tight press of bodies and sees Adam sprawled with his legs spread and arms hanging off the armrests, and he has a twisted smile that sets Frank’s teeth on edge. Adam looks like he knows things, like he knows everything, even about _Frank_ , and before he even makes the conscious decision to do it, Frank’s charging forward, his fists clenched and his chest burning with simmering, red heat.

Adam’s eyes flick over to Frank just a flash of a second before Frank’s fist slams into Adam’s cheek, and he looks _amused_. He looks like this is funny, like he manipulated Frank to achieve this exact end. Frank brings his fist back for another punch, but Adam stands and closes his hand around Frank’s wrist, holding him firm.

“That’s good, Frank,” he says. “It’s good to feel this way, isn’t it? Don’t you _love_ it?” There’s a pink smear of blood on Adam’s white, even teeth and once Frank sees it, he can’t look away.

Frank struggles to free himself from Adam’s grip, but Adam’s bigger and stronger than him, and he holds firm. “How do you know...” he starts, but Adam interrupts him.

“Tommy’s told me all about you. It’s been coming for a long time, hasn’t it, Frank? This...sickness?”

Frank’s panting, and his heart is pounding, and his knuckles hurt from where they’ve made contact with Adam’s jaw. Something in the way Adam pronounces that last word makes Frank want to hit him again. “Tommy said you could help me. But I don’t want to be part of this...whatever this is. I want to be _fixed_. I want a _cure_.”

“This _is_ the cure, Frank,” Adam says, leaning close and towering over Frank, staring at him with those unnaturally black-ringed eyes. “You’ve been sick your whole life. This is what it’s like to be free.”

Frank lifts his left hand to pound on Adam’s chest, but Adam catches him and tightens his grip, and now there’s no way for Frank to escape. He struggles wildly, grunting with effort, and Adam just smiles down at him.

“Adam!” someone shouts. Frank sees Tommy out of the corner of his eye. Adam doesn’t look over. He keeps staring at Frank, intensely focused.

“It’s okay, Tommy,” he says in a slow, even voice.

“Frank, don’t hurt him,” Tommy says.

“He won’t hurt me,” Adam replies. “He wants to know more. Don’t you, Frankie? You want to know the whole story.”

“No! I don’t want this, I don’t want any of this. It’s too hard. It’s too _much_. I want everything to go back to how it was before. You can make that happen, I know you can, please...” Frank’s babbling now, no thought to his words, raw and real, and Adam’s face softens, though his grip remains as firm as ever.

“It is hard. I know it is. But it’s also worth it, Frank,” Adam says. Frank shakes his head, opening his mouth to reply, but Adam speaks right over him. “Think for a second. Isn’t there anything you’ve felt since the feelings started, anything you’ve wanted, that might make all the hurting and the hiding...might make all of it worth the trouble?”

He wants to say no. He _needs_ to say no, for the sake of everything he’s ever known, everything his life has come to be. Instead, he thinks of Gerard’s dark eyes and round face. The way his hair falls into his eyes. The way his skin felt under Frank’s touch. How much he wished Gerard had shivered with him at the fleeting contact.

He stops struggling. In the next moment, his legs go shaky, feeling too weak to hold him up, and he slumps in Adam’s grip, falling heavy against Adam’s body, face pressing into his chest.

“It’s okay,” Adam murmurs. “It’s natural to feel this way. It’s healthy.”

“I’m _sick_ ,” Frank insists. “I feel _awful_. This isn’t normal.”

“But it is, Frank. This is how we were supposed to feel, before the government decided it was too much for us to handle. It’s a method of _control_.”

“They don’t control me.”

“They’ve turned you into their definition of a perfect human being. A drone. A good little worker bee. One who works without complaint, one who never asks for anything. These people here, we’ve all broken free of that control. We’ve all become unique. You’re a unique person, Frank.”

Frank shakes his head, but it’s weak now. He doesn’t know how to fight Adam’s words. “Everyone has to be the same. Equal. That’s the only way society functions.”

“That’s what they’ve told you all your life,” Adam says, and his expression hardens. “But do you really think it’s fair that you work at your desk every single day while some people have the power and the freedom to do whatever they want? Why shouldn’t that be you, Frankie?”

Adam leans down and presses his cheek to Frank’s. Frank can feel the throbbing heat of the bruise he left on Adam radiating into his own skin. Adam turns his face closer and the corner of his mouth slides against Frank, wet and warm. Frank draws in a shuddering breath.

“Why shouldn’t you be allowed to feel this, Frank? What right do they have to keep this from you?”

“Keep what?” Frank asks in a whisper.

“Pleasure,” Adam breathes against his ear. Frank shivers. “Fear. Pride. Anger. Love. _Lust_.”

Adam loosens his grip on Frank’s wrists, but Frank doesn’t lower his hands, just tightens his fingers and grabs onto Adam’s shirt, holding on. “I never...” he whispers, not quite knowing how to say it.

Adam leans down to whisper back, hardly audible over the pounding beat of the underground. “I didn’t either. I never planned. I never wanted. I did it because I had no other choice. Because I had to. Because it’s who I am...who we are.”

Frank opens his eyes and looks up at Adam, and his voice hardly shakes at all when he asks, “Who are we?”

Adam’s eyes go shuttered, and his tone is resigned. “Victims, Frank. Victims of our parent’s good intentions, of our own passive acceptance. But no more.” He takes Frank by the arms and pulls him gently away from his body, turns him to look out over the glittering chaos of the room. “It’s something different for everyone, you know. Something that calls to them, draws them out of their sad little lives and makes them come back, despite their fear. What is it for you? What brought you back here tonight?”

Frank’s heart leaps into his throat at the sight of all these people, all these people like _him_ , so strongly affected by the rhythmic, thudding sounds that rattle in Frank’s bones. He doesn’t have the words to describe how deeply it touches him.

“I can hear...I can feel it,” he whispers. “I wanted to feel it again. The... the...”

“The music?” Adam asks softly.

“I’ve never heard anything like it.”

“No,” Adam says. “They’ve hidden it all. They’ve taken it away; they’ve taken a part of _you_ away.” Frank finds himself nodding in agreement. Adam kisses Frank’s cheek. “Go and reclaim it.”

Frank watches the bodies moving, the limbs stretched toward the ceiling and the sweat shining on bare skin, flashing in the colored lights. He wants to join them but... “I don’t know what to do,” he admits.

Adam circles out from behind him and steps off the platform, extending a hand back to Frank to help him down as well. “Dance with me.”

“Dance?”

“Yeah, Frank. Dance with me.”

Adam moves onto the floor, and the people part before him like waves, letting him pass. Frank follows in his wake, until Adam finds a place and stops, spinning around to face Frank. The crowd starts to close in around them again, and Adam puts his hands on Frank’s hips, and they all start moving at once. Frank doesn’t know what to do -- he doesn’t have a template for this, and he feels like anything he does will be the wrong thing. But Adam’s hands are steady on him, and there are people pressing in on every side, moving and jumping so wildly that it’s impossible to keep still. He closes his eyes and lets the crowd push him, lets the music get inside him, and Adam’s voice is in his ear again, whispering.

“Come on, come on, let go. No one’s looking. No one cares. It’s just you and the music, whatever you want it to be.”

Slowly, Frank’s fingers unclench, and he lets out a breath he feels like he’s been holding for a very long time. And then the crowd isn’t just pushing him -- he’s pushing _back_. His head catches the rhythm of the music and nods along to the driving beat, and his feet stomp madly on the hard floor, and somehow his arms are over his head, punching at the air one moment and reaching, _reaching_ for something he can’t describe the next.

He dances until he’s breathless, until he’s dripping with sweat and his skin is littered with small pains, the bruising evidence of hips and elbows. Somewhere in the seething crowd, Adam’s hands find him again, and he opens his eyes to see a bright grin on Adam’s face as he pulls Frank close.

“You feel it, don’t you?” Adam asks, breathing heavy himself.

Frank doesn’t stop dancing for a moment as he answers. An hour ago, he might have asked Adam to clarify that question, to explain what exactly he’s supposed to be feeling, to put words to it. Instead, he gives Adam an answering grin and nods and says, simply, “Yeah. I do.”

Adam’s smile twists into something toothy and strange, intense and compelling. He grabs Frank and yanks him in, and when Frank looks into Adam’s eyes, he sees something new there, something deeper. Adam comes closer, pressing them together from knee to chest, and he doesn’t break eye contact.

“Tell me about it. Tell me how it makes you feel,” Adam murmurs, low and soft, like it’s a secret between them. They’re still dancing, but it’s different now, bodies moving in unison with each other and the music, and Frank has to force himself to think, to find the words.

“It’s like...I don’t know, it’s like it’s pushing me, or lifting me up or something...like I can’t even control myself. It’s like it’s moving through me, taking over my body.”

“Have you ever felt anything so freeing?” Adam asks.

Frank shakes his head. “No... Yes. I... but not like this.”

Adam looks amused when he asks Frank to explain. “Tell me, Frank.”

“It was like I couldn’t control myself. I just moved, and I... I touched, and... I couldn’t stop. It felt... It felt so good, and I’ve never--It was addictive.”

“What was? What did you do, Frankie?”

Frank’s cheeks are burning, and he can’t believe he’s saying this, admitting to the worst, most shameful thing he’s ever done in his life. But...part of him _wants_ to say it, to tell Adam in hopes of being...not forgiven, exactly, but maybe...understood. He looks up at Adam and says, “I know I shouldn’t have done it. I didn’t mean to. I know it’s not...natural. But it _felt_...” He groans and looks down again, and he can hardly hear his own voice over the music now. “It felt too good to stop.”

“Did you touch yourself, Frankie? Did you get hard?” Frank nods, almost sick to his stomach with guilt, but Adam touches Frank’s cheek, raises his head. “What were you thinking about?”

“I... I don’t know. Here. This place... I couldn’t get it out of my head. I couldn’t stop thinking about you and--Tommy, and this man at work, and everything twisted in my mind. It changed. It was something new.”

“And it felt good, didn’t it? To get hard and touch yourself, and release all those thoughts. I know how good it feels. I know how much you _need_ it.”

Frank shakes his head. “But it’s pointless! That’s not what it’s...you know... _for_.”

Adam laughs, but before Frank can start to feel bad, Adam pulls him close again into a tight embrace. “Babies are wonderful, Frank, but they’re not the only reason your body can do what it does. There is so much else.”

“Like what? What other purpose is there?” Frank asks, his voice muffled against Adam’s chest.

“Pleasure for the sake of pleasure isn’t wrong. Why shouldn’t you enjoy your own body, its reactions and abilities? But there’s more than that, too...it’s about sharing yourself with someone else, connecting with them in a way that’s not like any other.”

“Connecting...but _how_?” Frank asks. His voice sounds raw and desperate, shocking to his own ears.

Adam puts one finger under Frank’s chin, tilting his head up with the lightest touch of pressure, and his voice is utterly serious when he speaks. “Do you want to know, Frank? I can show you. I can make you feel...”

“Feel...what?”

“I want you to feel _everything_ , Frankie,” he says, and even though he’s quiet, Frank can hear every word. Adam’s voice comes through low and clear beneath the pounding music. Frank is mesmerized by him, and he can’t look away, even when Adam leans too close and Frank’s eyes can’t focus.

Adam slots his mouth to Frank’s and presses his tongue gently to Frank’s lips, and he holds tight with his hands around Frank’s back, keeping Frank from pulling away in surprise. Frank blinks a few times, catching only quick flashes of stop-motion of the world around him, and Adam maintains the steady pressure, the gentle probing of his tongue against Frank’s teeth, tracing over his lips, and Frank finally just closes his eyes and surrenders himself to it, clenching his hands in the sides of Adam’s shirt. His fingers brush bare skin, and he pulls the shirt wider, flattens his palm against Adam’s chest just to feel more. There’s the same jolt he felt with Gerard, but not as intense--or maybe Frank is just too overwhelmed by sensation now to really feel it. He concentrates on the firm muscle beneath his hand and tries to respond to Adam’s kiss, tries to give back half of what Adam’s giving him.

Adam bends Frank backwards a little, setting him just enough off-balance that he has to throw an arm around Adam’s neck to keep himself from falling to the floor. His stomach is fluttering crazily, but he can’t categorize the feeling as “nervous”. He’s tense, and greedy, and he wants Adam to keep going. He wants to see what other surprises Adam has for him.

They move through the crowd slowly. Frank doesn’t even notice they're moving until they break free and there’s suddenly room to breathe. Adam walks him backward to a more secluded area, where only a few people are murmuring to each other and touching and kissing. Frank is so focused on Adam that he doesn’t look down, doesn’t watch where he’s putting his feet, and he trips when he stumbles upon something soft rather than the hard concrete floor. Adam catches him by the arms and gently lowers him to a thick, plush cushion, then settles next to Frank and props up his head on one hand. He reaches out and draws his fingers gently over Frank's stomach, touch warm on the pale strip of exposed skin where Frank's shirt has ridden up.

“Is this okay?” Adam asks softly. “Does it feel good?”

Adam slides his hands up under Frank’s shirt, stroking over his belly and up his chest, and Frank’s body drifts and sways with Adam’s touch. Adam finally takes hold of Frank’s shirt and pulls apart the sides, buttons popping free from their holes, and he drags it all the way down Frank’s shoulders and off his arms. The air isn’t cold against his bare skin, and Frank doesn’t try to hide himself. Adam places his hands flat against his chest again, pressing firmly against him, and this time Frank lets himself fall back onto the cushion, his arms spread wide, giving Adam room to touch him.

Adam's hands trace every inch of him, sliding over his ribs, bracketing his waist easily, pressing in where Frank's soft and sensitive. It's strange and different, but it doesn't feel wrong...instead, Frank's glad of the touch, holding him down, reminding him he's not alone. Adam doesn't take his eyes off Frank's face for a moment, and when Frank can't hold back anymore, arching up into Adam's touch and uttering a low moan, Adam's mouth quirks into a smile and his eyes turn narrow and wicked. Frank's breath catches at the look, and he's not sure...and then, before he can speak, Adam leans over his chest and _licks_ , his tongue swiping slow and hot right up the center of Frank's chest. It takes him by surprise, and he writhes violently, unable to keep up, keep still. Adam backs away instantly, waiting. Watching.

He knows it's not the right thing to say at that moment, but all Frank can think of is, “ _Why_?”

Adam reaches up and runs his hand gently over Frank's cheek. “Because it feels good. Because I like the way you sound when you feel so much you can't keep it in.”

“But...isn't it...” Frank wrinkles his nose.

“Gross? Unsanitary? _Dirty_?” Adam asks, his tone light. “No, Frank, it's not. I like the way you taste. And besides...my tongue has been in worse places.”

He laughs, as if he's made a joke, though Frank doesn't get it and Adam doesn't explain. Instead, he bends down again, nuzzling at Frank's chest, giving him light random kisses that remind Frank of raindrops. He's just starting to relax into the pillows again when Adam licks him again, warm and shocking and right over one of his nipples. Frank’s stomach twists up in knots, and he feels his blood rushing down his body. His penis grows hard again, as it had before, blatant and embarrassing.

Frank lifts his head and looks down his body, and Adam starts to pull back. Frank doesn’t want to lose the strange, hot sensations, and he desperately doesn’t want Adam to notice how his body is reacting; he reaches for Adam’s head, slides his fingers through Adam’s hair, and doesn’t let him go far.

“No! Stay. Keep going.”

“Are you sure?” Adam asks, laying his palm on the tense, tight muscles in Frank’s abdomen. He lets himself relax, lie back on the cushions, and twists his hips and raises one knee to try and camouflage his hardness. Adam gives him an odd look, his eyebrows raised and drawn together, wrinkling his forehead, but Frank just swallows hard and ignores it. Adam bends over him again and latches onto one of Frank’s nipples with his lips and tongue, grazing his teeth over it every now and then, and it gets more and more difficult to keep his hardness hidden. Frank’s hips shift of their own accord, and his hand clenches in Adam’s hair.

His penis aches to be touched, and Frank remembers how desperate it made him before. He’s not sure now if he’ll be able to resist for much longer. A deep flush blooms on his cheeks, and he feels hot all over his body, overheated, and he’s sure that Adam will notice soon. Frank slaps a hand down by his side and grabs a handful of the soft cushion, squeezing it tight in his fist as he groans with the effort of keeping still. Adam is so close to him, hovering above him, and yet the only place they’re touching is where Adam’s lips connect to Frank’s nipple, and Frank’s hand tugging at Adam’s thick hair. He wants so badly to arch up, rub himself against Adam’s firm body, but he can’t let Adam know. He’s not sure how something can feel so good and be so _wrong_ at the same time.

But Frank’s body is betraying him, and his hips rock up, and he’s squirming under the ministrations of Adam’s tongue, and before he can get himself under control, Frank plants his feet and forces his hips up, rubbing his crotch against Adam’s thigh, and it’s both an intense relief and no relief at all. The pressure building inside him only becomes greater and more difficult to control. He wants to push Adam away, now, preserve any chance that Adam hasn’t noticed, but he can’t make himself release his grip on Adam’s hair, and Adam shows no sign of stopping either.

Adam moans and Frank can feel the vibrations of the sound through his chest, Adam’s lips tickling against his skin, and he just barely pulls off to say, “That’s it, Frankie, show me.”

“What?” Frank gasps.

Adam shifts his weight and grinds his thigh down on Frank, startling a moan out of him.

“Yes,” Adam hisses, and pushes himself up on his hands and knees. Frank’s hand falls, weak, from Adam’s hair to the cushion. “Tell me what you feel.”

“It’s _wrong_ ,” Frank protests, his face flaming hot in shame. “I’m sorry, I didn’t--”

“It’s not wrong, Frank. It’s your body, and it’s beautiful. Tell me how it feels.”

Frank shifts his hips again, this time trying to escape the pressure of Adam’s thigh. “I--I can’t even...”

“Then show me,” Adam says softly. He drops his hands to the zip of Frank’s slacks and slowly draws it down, exposing Frank’s briefs and the damp spot where his penis has smeared wetness. Adam puts his fingers at the elastic waistband and looks up, meeting Frank’s eyes. “May I...?”

Frank throws an arm over his eyes, blocking out the light, hiding from what his body is insisting he wants. His hips strain up toward Adam's hand, wanting relief, something, _anything_. There's a high whine coming from somewhere, and it's distracting for a moment until Frank realizes it's _him_ , the sound of desperation, shame and want and the pounding of blood rushing through his ears. Adam's hand brushes him, so, so lightly through his underwear, and he _arches_ , chasing the touch, the sweet relief of pressure that's no relief at all.

"Frank?" Adam's voice is low but insistent, and Frank doesn't think, just responds, lets simple need finally, finally take over.

"Please, Adam, _please_..." He doesn't know what he's begging for, but Adam will, Adam who's drawn every secret out of him as easy as drawing blood.

"That's right, that's just right. Breathe..." Adam murmurs, and slides his hand into Frank's underwear to wrap his fingers around Frank's penis. He instantly forgets Adam's command, forgets he needs to breathe, forgets what breathing _is_. The world narrows down to Adam's hand and the way it makes Frank feel, a reaching desperate thing like nothing Frank has ever known, something he never wants to stop feeling now that he knows what it’s like. After a moment, though, Adam stops touching him to slide his pants and underwear all the way off his legs, leaving Frank bare and exposed. Frank writhes restlessly without Adam’s warm touch anchoring him, but Adam doesn’t reach for him again.

“Please, Adam, don’t stop,” he says, clenching his hands again in the cushion.

“I want you to show me this time. Show me how you touch yourself, Frankie. Show me how you touch your cock.”

Frank stares up at Adam, completely at a loss. “What?”

Adam takes Frank’s hand and brings it to Frank’s penis, fits their hands together, Adam’s palm curling Frank’s fingers into a loose fist, and Frank moans, closing his eyes. Adam guides him and begins stroking, using Frank’s hand as an extension of his own for a moment, but then he stops and takes his hand away. Frank’s rhythm falters and he blinks a few times, trying to focus.

“Show me, Frank. I want to see you. You did this before, and I want to see. Stroke your cock, let me watch.”

"I can't," Frank moans, "I _can’t_ ," but he is, rubbing himself up and down, the wetness leaking from the tip of his... _cock_ , he thinks with an electric shudder...dripping down the length and making everything wet and slick and _better_ , how could it be better?

Adam's moaning above him now, and Frank can't open his eyes but he knows Adam's watching. The thought should make him want to stop, pull his clothes on and hide and never touch himself again. Instead, it pushes him harder, spurs him on. Suddenly, he's thinking about Adam's tongue again, how warm and wet it had been on his skin and what Adam had said about the...places it had been. What if...what if he hadn't stopped licking, just kept tasting Frank lower and lower and...

" _Fuck_ , Frank, you're so hot, you don't even know how hot you are. Beautiful. Just like that, don't stop, let me see you..." Adam says all in a rush, and when Frank dares to peek through his eyelashes, Adam is braced over him on one arm, touching _himself_ with his other hand, mimicking Frank stroke for stroke through the gaping sides of his pants. He’s not wearing any underwear, and Frank finds himself mesmerized. He watches Adam’s fist, the head of his cock leaking fluid, and Frank squeezes himself tight, tensing his thighs. He wants to see more.

“I don’t know--I want... I feel...” he stutters, unable to put his thoughts into words.

Adam seems to understand him, though. He sits up on his heels, suddenly towering over Frank like some kind of larger-than-life statue. His pants slide down around his thighs, exposing the cut of his hips, and now Frank can see Adam’s cock, can see how thick and flushed it is, how _hard_. Adam isn’t ashamed to show himself. He leans backwards a little, thrusting his hips in counterpoint to his hand, meeting every stroke with steady force.

“Like this, Frankie,” Adam gasps. “ _Fuck_ , like this. Are you close now, Frankie? Are you gonna come?”

Frank doesn’t know how to answer. He stares at Adam’s cock, at Adam’s hand twisting and tightening and rubbing, and he tries to mimic the movements. He feels overwhelmed by sensation, close to losing control, but to allow himself the release would be wasteful. He tries desperately to hold back.

“No, Frank,” Adam says, like he can hear Frank’s thoughts. “Let yourself go. Feel it. It’s okay.”

“But--”

“It’s natural, Frankie. It’s _right_. It’s okay. It’s _okay._ Let it happen. Come for me, Frankie. Let me see you lose control.”

It takes him by surprise, when it finally happens, waves of _too much_ turning all of a sudden into _yes._ He wants to watch Adam, wants to keep watching his flushed skin and darkened eyes, but it’s impossible to watch anything at that moment, do anything but curl in on himself and ride it out to the end. It’s still wet and messy and wasteful, purposeless, but Adam’s here and he’s doing it too and it just feels so good, so _alive_ , every muscle and nerve in his body working together toward one common goal and pure pleasure spilling through him in reward. Adam’s saying something, low hurried words that break apart toward the end, and suddenly Frank feels a second wetness splattering over him, over his belly and hips and thighs. It should be repulsive, and in a way it is, but something about it makes Frank feel almost...proud. Like Adam’s marked him as one of his own. The thought makes him giggle, and when he opens his eyes Adam’s smiling down at him as he catches his breath, amused.

“What’s funny?” Adam asks, his voice creamy and sated. But Frank doesn’t have an answer, doesn’t _know_ , and he just laughs harder, louder, the sound rioting out of him for long, breathless minutes. Adam laughs too, and kisses the corners of his mouth when he can catch them. “You are so high right now.”

Frank doesn’t know what that means, but it feels about right, like he’s somewhere above the world, like he’s flying. Adam stays close as he comes down, like he knows Frank needs something to hang on to, and Frank does, clings to Adam’s shirt and loses himself in the music as his heartbeat slows and his breath comes back and his fingers and toes start to go cold.

He floats for a long time after, and Adam lets him, not saying a word. He’s vaguely aware of Adam carrying him back to his oversized chair, settling him on his lap and wrapping a large, soft blanket around them both, but he’s not ready to open his eyes yet, _definitely_ not ready to talk. Adam seems to understand, and he doesn’t ask the questions Frank’s half-expecting to hear, doesn’t press. Instead, he puts his arms around Frank and holds him close, and starts to sing.

It’s nothing like the anthem that comes down the speakers at the beginning of every work day, steady and mechanical and always the same. Adam’s voice doesn’t seem to follow a pattern at all, wandering smoothly up and down at his whim, soft and rich and the most comforting sound Frank’s ever heard.

“How do you do that?” Frank asks quietly. “How do you... think of it? How do you know what to do?”

“Practice,” Adam tells him. “Just like anything else.”

“I’ve never heard anything like it before.”

Adam takes a long, deep breath and lets it out slowly. “It just comes out of me, I guess. I feel it inside myself, and I let it come out through my voice. And there are so many ways to express what you’re feeling, Frankie. So many things that make us unique. The way we think; what inspires us. What you feel can’t be expressed by anyone but you.”

“What inspires you?” Frank asks. He’s not exactly sure what Adam means; he can’t find anything in his own memory that has made him want to sing or dance before now.

Adam cocks his head and smiles. “Everything. You just have to look around and you’ll see something, or hear something, or touch something... and you’ll want to create something of your own. Right now...” His hand slips beneath a fold of the blanket and slides up Frank’s thigh. “You inspire me. The way you’re learning and discovering yourself. How brave you are.”

Frank goes still, surprised. “Brave? You’re the brave one. Everything you’ve done, all these people you’ve brought here...I haven’t done anything. I don’t know anything.”

“And that’s why you’re brave. Do you think I don’t remember what it was like, learning everything I’d ever been taught was a lie? It’s the hardest thing in the world, accepting that you’re wrong, especially when it’s not your fault. You did that, Frank. You came back here even though it was new and different and strange, even though you might have been caught. That will never stop inspiring me.”

Frank’s quiet for a long time after that, thinking, and Adam lets him be. He watches the people dancing and the lights flashing, and he thinks about how just above them people are walking home from work, all grey suits and blank faces and drug-dulled senses. He’s walked this way himself, and he never knew, never even suspected. There could even be other places like this, tucked away all over the city, maybe all over the world, like brightly-colored gems hidden just out of sight.

“So what now?” Frank asks, without quite meaning to.

“Now you have a choice. You don’t have to leave your life behind -- you can do what Tommy does, and live half in that world and half in this. Or you can stay here. Some people just can’t fake it without the drugs, you know. They live down here, with me and the others like them. It’s up to you.”

Frank nods, but that’s not really what he’d been asking, and he tries again. “But...what _then?_ Are you just going to keep collecting people like this, keeping it a secret for as long as you can? Or...I mean, what happens when someone finds out? Do you have...”

“A plan?” Adam asks, and Frank nods. There’s a long pause, and then Adam says, “I think about it sometimes. What it would be like to stop hiding, to take our people to the surface and show everyone who we are, what we’re doing. Make the government face us, one way or another. But...”

“But what?”

“I don’t know if I can. If I’m strong enough. I’m not a revolutionary, Frank. I’m not a leader. That’s what these people need, and I don’t know if I can be that for them.”

Frank doesn’t think that’s true; Adam seems to take charge in this place easily enough, but he understands Adam’s reluctance. He’s already taken so many big steps in creating this sanctuary; any more might upset the balance and ruin everything. That doesn’t stop Frank from wishing--or hoping--for even more of a change.

He looks down at Adam’s arm, where his wrist disappears under Frank’s blanket, and spies the edges of the ink designs he noticed earlier. Frank takes Adam’s hand and turns his arm so he can see the underside of Adam’s wrist. There’s an eye drawn there, and a figure-eight, and a long, thin key. Frank runs his finger down the straight line, feeling the pulse of Adam’s veins under his fingertips. Next he traces the curves of the eight and then the eye, and the blue ink around it. It doesn’t feel any different from Adam’s unmarked skin.

“You like it?” Adam asks softly.

“Yeah, it’s... fascinating. How does it work?”

“Well...imagine if you could press ink so deep into your skin it would never come off. It’s sort of like that. Like writing with a needle instead of a pen.”

Frank winces. “So it hurts?”

“It does. It’s sort of like getting an injection, except that instead of getting just one, you’re getting a lot of them.”

“And it can be any picture you want?” Adam nods, and Frank shakes his head, thinking about how many different things there are in the world, how many images to choose from. “How did you decide?”

“This one,” Adam says, pushing Frank’s fingers to the tattooed eye, “was so I wouldn’t be alone. So I’d have someone watching me, as I made all these changes in my life. And this...” He drags Frank’s hand up his arm, to the elbow, tracing over the key. “This is to represent unlocking the part of yourself that our society has tried to hide away.”

Frank touches the figure-eight. “What about this one? Why eight?”

“It’s not an eight,” Adam tells him. “It’s the symbol for infinity. I think of it like a feedback loop, between me and the universe, or me and other people. Everything they do affects me, and everything I do affects them. Constantly. And everything’s always changing.”

Frank thinks about that for a moment. Everything Adam does affects people. It’s true. Adam affected him, and he affected Tommy and the rest of the people here, and they go out into the world and... “It never stops.”

“Exactly.”

Frank runs his fingers in one last lingering touch over Adam’s painted skin. Then he looks down at his own, pale and unmarked. Unremarkable. It doesn’t feel right anymore, somehow, doesn’t feel like _his_. He looks up at Adam. “I want one.”

Adam’s eyebrows raise in surprise. “Are you sure? Like I said...they don’t come off. There’s no changing your mind.”

“My mind is already changed,” Frank says. “No going back now. I wouldn’t want to if I could.”

“Do you know what you would want? What’s important enough to you to make it a part of your body forever?” Adam asks. He sounds genuinely curious, and Frank smiles. He’s never spoken to Adam before tonight, and already Frank feels like he cares more about what Adam thinks than almost anyone else in the world. Frank touches Adam’s tattoos again, thinking.

“It should have meaning, right? It should... represent something.”

“Mine do. Some don’t. You’ve seen Tommy? He has some that he just likes. They aren’t anything beyond pretty, to him.”

“I want mine to mean something,” Frank says decisively. “I feel like... I’ve been reborn. Does that make sense?”

“It makes perfect sense. You have been, you know? You went from this... zombie, this walking corpse, to a real human being, with a life and desires.”

“Maybe... Maybe bones? A skull? Something to remind me never to let myself slip back into that state.”

Adam flashes a smile. “I’m glad you’re sticking it out,” he says. “I know it’s hard, becoming this whole new person, but it’s worth it. Trust me.”

Frank meets Adam’s eyes and says, “I do.”

Adam kisses Frank, then, light and soft on the lips. Then he stands up and sets Frank on his feet. “Come on, get dressed. Let’s do this.”

They make their way through the crowd, and Adam plucks Tommy out of the mass of people easily, drawing him close with one touch and whispering to him in tones too low for Frank to hear. After a short exchange between them, Tommy looks over at Frank with a brilliant grin on his face, his eyes alight, and in that moment, Frank hardly recognizes him, so different from the blank expression he wears on the surface. He can’t help but grin back, something electric and bright pricking at his skin, making him want to run, shout, _do_.

Tommy leads them over to the area he showed Frank before, with the chairs and buzzing needles. He gestures for Frank to sit down, and Adam drags over a second chair to it next to them.

“Where do you want it?” Tommy asks. Frank holds out his hand without thinking.

“Right under the sleeve. Where I can look at it if I want...or if I need to.”

“Rad.”

Frank watches Tommy go through the process, sterilizing and drawing, asking him questions now and then about the design. His heart is in his throat the whole time, because this more than anything else tonight feels _real_ , something he won’t wake up from. He can’t help fidgeting, and when Tommy finally takes the needle in hand, he can’t keep his arm still no matter how hard he tries.

He’s just about to apologize when he feels Adam’s hand slip into his own, big and warm and steadying, and somehow that makes it okay, makes it easy to take deep, slow breaths and hold his arm still and let Tommy begin to work. He winces. Adam was right -- it _does_ hurt.

“All right, Frank?” Adam’s voice, low and careful.

“Yes...yeah...good,” he manages, even though he’s sort of not. He’s felt pain before, plenty of times, but this is brighter and closer than that, more immediate. More real.

“Talk to me. It’ll take your mind off the pain. Tell me about him.”

Frank’s eyes fly open, and he finds Adam giving him a knowing look. “About who?”

“Oh, come on, Frank, it’s practically written on your forehead. Who is he? What’s his name?” Frank doesn’t answer immediately, and Adam cocks his head and says, “Or her. That’s okay too.”

“It’s... not... anyone,” Frank says weakly, but Tommy just shakes his head. “What?”

“It’s someone at work,” Tommy says. “Someone at the office gets you all hot and bothered...”

“It’s not like that,” Frank insists. “It’s... I don’t know. I don’t know what it is. He was just the first person I... _noticed_. Everyone’s the same, but he stands out. I don’t know why. It doesn’t make sense. There’s nothing special about him, not that I can see.”

“Except that you like him,” Tommy says. “That makes him special.”

“It’s attraction,” Adam adds. “When your body started resisting the drugs, it broke through. Something always breaks through.”

Frank looks down at his wrist, where Tommy’s drawing on him with a buzzing needle. It hurts less now, or maybe he’s just not aware of the pain. “We’ve never even really talked, but...when I touched him, it felt like electricity,” he murmurs. Tommy and Adam exchange a look that Frank can’t decipher. He looks back and forth between them. “What does that mean? Is there something... connecting us? Is there a reason?”

Adam shrugs. “The reason is what you make of it, Frank. You’re attracted to this man. Maybe it goes deeper than that. Maybe you could explore those feelings you have. Or you could let them go.”

“I don’t want to let them go,” Frank protests. “I want to understand.”

“The problem is that he’s still on the drugs,” Tommy says quietly. “You’re talking about Gerard, right?”

Frank’s cheeks heat and he tries to hide his face against his shoulder. Tommy strokes his thumb over Frank’s hand.

“He’s very beautiful,” Tommy says, and it seems like a strange observation, except that it fits Gerard perfectly. Tommy nods his head toward Adam. “He actually reminds me a little of you, Adam. There’s just something about him. Something in his eyes.”

“I wish he could see this,” Frank says. “I wish he could... live like this. Experience this. All the music, and the... the lights, and the drawings. The dancing.”

“The sex,” Adam says knowingly, and Frank blushes again.

“There’s always a chance,” Tommy adds. “He might break free like you did.”

Frank thinks that’s unlikely; he seemed so alone, when his body rejected the drugs. He was afraid to turn to anyone for help. Gerard would surely be the same way.

“The things that I feel, they’re just wrong,” he says. “I mean... Maybe they’re not wrong. They feel right, they feel... like the most perfect thing. But Gerard doesn’t think so. He’ll think they’re wrong. He’ll think I shouldn’t want him.”

Adam lays a hand on Frank’s shoulder and squeezes. “He can learn, like you learned. There’s hope for everyone, Frank.”

Frank stays quiet as Tommy finishes, thinking, letting his mind run away with him. It’s easy to imagine telling Gerard about this place, or even bringing him here, but he’s not sure he could get up the courage to do it for real. He doesn’t know what he would do if Gerard didn’t respond, or worse, if he _did_ and still didn’t feel anything special toward Frank. There are new feelings down that path, dark ones, and Frank doesn’t even want to think about them, what it would be like to be overwhelmed by something so entirely hopeless.

After Tommy wraps Frank’s wrist and covers up the new tattoo, he sits back and stares at Frank like he’s trying to read Frank’s thoughts. Adam seems to already know what Frank’s thinking. He doesn’t beat around the bush. “Don’t bring him here before he’s ready,” he says firmly. “If you force it, if you force _him_ , it’ll backfire. Just remember that he needs to come to his own conclusions, like you did. Give him enough time to do that.”

Frank sits up and nods solemnly. Gerard is too risky. He knows it already, but it’s good to hear Adam saying it too. It helps. There’s so much he wants to say to Adam, so much to thank him for, to ask him about. Instead, what comes out is, “I’m sorry I hit you.”

Adam laughs, startled. “It’s okay, Frank. I’ve had worse.”

“But really, I don’t know what I was thinking, and...”

Adam stands and pulls Frank to his feet, careful of his wrapped arm. “You can make it up to me by being careful. Don’t let anyone see this. And come back tomorrow night,” he says, a kind smile on his lips.

Frank smiles back. “I will. Thank you. Both of you,” he says, looking at Tommy, who gives him a silent nod, and back to Adam, who’s watching him with intense eyes. “Couldn’t keep me away.”

Frank thinks he’s doing pretty good blending in the next day at work, for his first try. He keeps his face impassive and his head down and his mouth shut, and it seems to work all right. No one looks at him funny or asks him any uncomfortable questions. The tattoo is the hardest part. It doesn’t just hurt, it _itches_ , and Frank finds himself rubbing at it without even realizing, trying to ease the annoyance through the bandage under his sleeve. Tommy seems to be constantly finding bits and pieces of mail to deliver to him, and every time he catches Frank scratching, he gives him a _look_ , eyebrows raised and lips pursed. Eventually, Frank starts sitting on his hands, and that pretty much solves it.

He doesn’t say a word to Gerard.

Once the bandage comes off, Frank’s routine is easier for him to manage. He can just pull his sleeve up a few inches, at any time throughout the day, and see the design, the _art_ permanently etched onto his body. It’s a calming reminder, and it gets him through each day of mindless, soulless work at a blank computer inside an empty cubicle, until he can escape to the freedom of Adam’s underground club. Frank gets used to spending his evenings there, dancing and talking and learning about people, and then collapsing, exhausted, into bed each night, just to do it all again the next day. He hasn’t let anyone else touch him or even see him the way Adam has, and he’s not sure he wants to. He’s waiting, but he’s _learning_ , and that feels right.

The days are so boring, so routine, that Frank can’t even tell them apart in his memory, and they begin to feel more and more pointless as time goes on. He wonders why he even bothers leaving the club at all, why he’s still putting on this facade and playing this role, why it even matters....until the day Gerard talks to him.

“Is your arm feeling better?” Gerard asks. There’s no real inflection in his voice, nothing like the excitement or anger or curiosity Frank’s gotten used to hearing at the club, but his heart leaps anyway. He stands from his chair and turns to face Gerard, putting them at eye level. Frank doesn’t think he’s ever been at Gerard’s eye level before. It’s hard not to stare.

“Uh, yeah. Thanks. How did you know?”

“You kept itching it. Rubbing it. It looked like you hurt it somehow,” Gerard tells him tonelessly.

“I did,” Frank replies, “but it’s better now.”

“I brought your reports,” Gerard says. He holds them out toward Frank.

Frank reaches for them. He’s careful not to touch Gerard’s hands. He’s always careful about that now.

Gerard sucks in a quick breath, and his eyebrows draw together. Frank looks down, following Gerard’s gaze, and sees his own sleeve pulled back, his tattoo exposed. He doesn’t know what to do, doesn’t know whether to hold still and wait for Gerard to come to a decision, or yank his sleeve back down and insist there’s nothing on his arm, see if Gerard will argue. But Gerard moves before Frank can decide, stepping more fulling into the cubicle and blocking the opening with his body so no one can see in.

He grabs Frank’s wrist and turns it over, pushing his sleeve further up his arm. The skull tattoo is stark and black under the bright overhead lights, unmistakable as anything but what it is, and Gerard stares down at it without speaking. Just stares.

Frank holds his breath, knowing that even the slightest sound or motion will shatter the stillness. He’s never been so afraid in his life. He doesn’t want Gerard to react, can’t deal with whatever he might say, but he can’t take this moment either, this horrible tense _not knowing_. It seems to draw on forever, an endless frozen point in time, and Frank’s going to pass out unless he can force himself to breathe again soon.

Gerard moves first. Frank sees it out of the corner of his eye, because Gerard’s gaze doesn’t waver, doesn’t stray away from Frank’s tattoo. Frank watches him reach down with his right hand, feel around on Frank’s desk until he finds a pen. He places the tip right against the edge of the drawing on Frank’s arm and begins to sketch a slow, careful curve, right on Frank’s skin, and then another, and another. Petals of a flower, a rose in full bloom, bursting out from behind the skull like a halo. Frank releases his breath shakily and flicks his gaze back up to Gerard’s face to watch the intense concentration there. It’s the only real expression he’s ever seen from Gerard, and he desperately wants to see more.

Suddenly, Gerard stops moving completely. The pen slips from his fingers and falls to the floor with a loud clatter. He slowly, slowly looks up and meets Frank’s eyes. Frank can read fear there, and he smiles, hoping to put Gerard at ease.

“Don’t apologize,” he says when Gerard opens his mouth to speak. “It’s beautiful.”

“I...I don’t...” Gerard’s shaking his head, quick little twitches that make his hair toss from side to side. “I don’t understand.”

Frank reaches out and takes Gerard’s hand gently in his own. Gerard’s fingers are cold and shaking, but they close around Frank’s, so tight it almost hurts. Frank smiles.

“Would you like to?”

*

The kiss of Tommy's needle is as familiar as breathing now, and Frank watches as a new line of black ink spreads across his skin. He's starting to run out of room on his arms, and he and Tommy have already discussed where else he might branch out to. As Tommy finishes up, head bent down and hair falling in a wave over his face, Frank looks up, stretching his neck and searching the room for a flash of unnaturally bright red hair. He can't wait to show Gerard.

He's sitting, as usual, on the raised platform next to Adam, deep in conversation. Adam's face is clouded, hesitant, but Frank recognizes Gerard's expression, the dangerous blend of passion and earnestness that could get a man to do almost anything. Gerard doesn't just have ideas. Gerard has _plans_.

As Frank watches, Adam nods, and Gerard's face comes alive with a bright, sharp smile full of tiny teeth. He jumps out of his chair and comes tripping through the crowd to find Frank, to tell him the news he's already figured out. They're doing it, finally moving out of the underground and into the cold light of the world above. It's exciting and terrifying and more, feelings Frank still doesn't have words for and maybe never will.

He slides off the table and runs to meet Gerard as he breaks free from the sea of people, catching him in a tight hug that almost throws them both to the ground. Gerard's breath is hot against his cheek, and he's still grinning, beautiful and wild and infectious.

"He said yes, Frankie, he said yes. We're gonna help them. All of them. We're gonna set them free," Gerard says, almost shouting to be heard over the music, and Frank's heart clenches in his chest.

"Fuck yeah we are," he shouts back, the curse word still sending a little thrill down his spine even after all this time, and he believes it. He really does.

He buries his head in Gerard's shoulder, kissing the warm, sweaty skin, and Gerard's arms tighten around him. "When?" he asks, almost dreading the answer.

Gerard's fingers come up to bury themselves in Frank's hair. "Tomorrow," he answers, and his voice goes sober on the word, like the reality of it is just now sinking in.

It's soon, too soon, but Frank doesn't argue, doesn't raise a word of complaint. Gerard believes in the cause more than anything, and Frank believes in Gerard. And anyway...he's right.

He pulls back to look Gerard in the eyes. "One last night, then?" he asks, winking lewdly, and Gerard laughs.

"Got any ideas how we could spend it?" he asks teasingly.

"I'm sure I could think of a few." Frank takes Gerard by the hand and pulls him back toward the pile of pillows they call a bed, ignoring the building anxiety in the back of his mind. The worry and the danger are for tomorrow. Tonight...tonight is just for them.

For reminding each other just what they're fighting for.

**Author's Note:**

> 90\. Dystopian future (and/or Killjoys universe) where human emotions have been regulated/suppressed. Frank builds up resistance to the "meds" and gets "sick", i.e. starts having feelings (LUST!) and is totally confused as to how to deal and why it's happening to him. Obviously he meets someone who educates him on his new and sudden ~urges and shows Frank he's not actually sick at all.


End file.
